Libretto-o-o: A Curtain Design in the Bright Sunshine Heavy with Love

Overview

As an artist and composer, Joe Namy’s practice addresses the encoded expressions of identity, memory and power in forms of sonic organisation. His previous projects have explored the gender dynamics of bass, the colour and tone of military programmes and the migration of musical instruments.

For his SB13 project, Namy has researched the influence of opera on music in the Arab world. Starting in Egypt with the founding of the Khedivial Opera House in 1869, he has found traces of the art form in Lebanon, Palestine, Kuwait, and more recently, the United Arab Emirates. Libretto-o-o: A Curtain Design in the Bright Sunshine Heavy with Love (2017) punctuates Sharjah Art Museum’s façade with a vibrant patchwork of fabrics that evoke garments used for celebration, mourning and everyday wear. These fabrics have been purchased from shops around Sharjah Art Foundation and sewn together by local tailors. The dramatic play of colour and pattern sets the stage for an audio track, located in Bait Al Serkal, comprised of short stories, poems and essays on the subject of opera that are read by five writers and poets. In a departure from the spectacle-driven pageantry that is typical of operatic productions, Namy’s visual and sonic composition inspires a contemplative sense of occasion that resonates with its surroundings.

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 13.